Jill Duggar revealed that tensions between her and father Jim Bob Duggar grew so tense that her husband, Derick Dillard, eventually threatened to get a “protective order” against him.
“[Derick and Jim Bob’s relationship] used to be really great. Derrick trusted my dad and my dad trusted him,” Jill, 32, explained on an episode of Christy Romano’s “Vulnerable” podcast on Tuesday, October 24. “But once we started having some differences, it got a little rocky there to the point where Derick had to have some really hard conversations with my dad and more recently [Derick] had to stand up for me … and said, ‘If you keep contacting her directly, I will have to file a protective order.’”
Although things are rough between Jill and the Duggar family patriarch 58, she still hopes things will get better in the future.
“We’re not rushing things either with my family. We want to have good relationships, we want there to be better trust,” she shared.
Jill and Dillard, 34 — who share sons Israel, 8, Samuel, 6 and Freddy, 16 months — have had a strained relationship with her mom, Michelle Duggar, and dad since they chose to exit Counting On in 2017. In October 2020, Jill told fans that she was “not on the best terms” with some of her relatives.
“We’ve had some disagreements, but we’re working toward healing definitely and restoration, but we’re having to kind of just take some time and heal,” she explained in a YouTube video at the time.
Jill continued to open up about her relationship with her family in the 2023 docuseries Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets. During the show, the mom of three admitted she felt “obligated to help” her family amid her brother Josh Duggar’s scandal. (In 2015, Josh, 35, was accused of molesting several girls when he was a teenager including Jill and sister Jessa Duggar.)
Jill and Jessa, 30, appeared on Megyn Kelly’s show at the time to defend their family name. “In hindsight, I wouldn’t have done the Megyn Kelly stuff,” she recalled during the show. “I felt like I was in a place again of, like, bearing the burden and the weight … you feel obligated to help. It’s not something that I’m proud of.”
Jill also spoke out in the docuseries about the strict rules she followed while growing up as part of the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP).
“If you were in IBPL, unfortunately, a lot of times you have to go through hell, because it’s not until then that you would risk everything to get out of those situations,” she shared at the time. “Eventually you start making your own decisions — like the nose ring that I got — and it’s piece by piece, little by little … you do what you need to survive.”
After the docuseries came out, Jill released her new book, Counting the Cost, in September, where she opened up about growing up in front of TLC cameras with her famous family.
Following the release of her novel, Jill revealed where she stands with both of her parents.
“I saw my mom at a birthday celebration for one of my sisters,” Jill explained to Access Hollywood in September. “She’s always good about bringing birthday gifts over, Christmas gifts, things like that, but it is very complicated. … We mostly see [my dad] at weddings, funerals, and then sometimes a few other events here and there. But yeah, it’s complicated. We try to not involve my mom in too much of it.”
The Counting On alum continued: “We really don’t have a whole lot of conversations at this point in our relationship with my family about the whole family drama situation, because we feel like we have kind of just had to make our own decisions and realize that you can’t change people. They have to, like, make those decisions for themselves, which is hard sometimes.”
Later that month, Jill claimed to Today that her father sent a serious message to his sons and daughters after Jill’s book was announced earlier this year. “My dad texted the entire family group text… and he was just saying, ‘This is so sad.’ [He was] basically threatening that if anybody speaks out against him or my mom that they would be cut off from the inheritance.”
